The State Hermitage Museum

Architectural and artistic image of St. Petersburg for long time is unimaginable without the Hermitage Museum. This Grand Palace Museum represents the Northern capital, as the Kremlin represents Moscow.

Currently it consists of five magnificent buildings in the baroque style in the Palace square, all connected technically and ideologically-semantic composition: the Winter Palace 1754-1762 the work of Bartolomeo Rastrelli; the Small Hermitage 1764-1775., built by Jean Vallin de La Mothe, Velten and V. P. Stasov and consisting of the Northern and southern pavilions and Hanging gardens; the Great Hermitage, built 1771-1787. according to the project Felten; the New Hermitage (1842-1851 works Leo von Klenze, V. P. Stasov and N. Efimova Hermitage theatre, built in the years 1783-1787 by the architect Giacomo Quarenghi.

Honour of the founding of the State Hermitage belongs to the Empress Catherine II, who in 1764 established the first Museum of her own collection of paintings by Dutch and Flemish artists, purchased in Berlin. The collection consisted of 220 pieces and at first was located in a separate wing of the Palace, the Empress in the French manner, called the Hermitage (from french: hermitage — a place of solitude, a hermit’s shelter). Subsequently, the name was kept for all of the Museum complex.

To the 40-th years of XIX century the collection has grown so much that to store it, took the construction of another building — the New Hermitage. It was completed in 1851, and the next perfectly arranged exposition was open to the public. By that time, it included a rich collection of masterpieces of ancient Eastern and ancient Egyptian cultures, ancient, medieval, West European art and artistic monuments of Asia.

Currently in the Hermitage the exposition of more than 3 million exhibits reflecting the development of world art from the stone age to the beginning of 2000-ies. Among her “pearls” of paintings by old masters of European painting: “Madonna Benois” Leonardo da Vinci, “Portrait of a woman” by Correggio, the “Lute player” Caravaggio, “Judith” Giorgione, “The return of the prodigal son” by Rembrandt, and many others, the enumeration of which will take more than one page. In addition, the Hermitage regularly exhibited collections and art collections of famous museums in the world.

Helpful information

Address The Hermitage

Palace Embankment, 38 / Palace square, 2.

Phone

(812) 710-90-79

Daily working hours:

Tuesday 10:30-18:00

Wednesday 10:30-21:00

Thursday 10:30-18:00

Friday 10:30-18:00

Saturday 10:30-18:00

Sunday 10:30-18:00

The cost of the ticket

The entrance ticket to the Main complex is 400 RUB (∼6.5 €); the adult citizens of the Russian Federation and Belarus on presentation of a passport — 100 roubles, children, students and pensioners of the Russian Federation are admitted for free.